Electronic versions

  • Antony R Long
  • Mingyao Yang
  • Kim Kaiser
  • David Shepherd
    University of Southampton

Smallminded (smid) encodes a new member of the cdc48p/VCP subfamily of AAA proteins in Drosophila. The gene was isolated by plasmid rescue from a GAL4 enhancer trap line which shows reporter gene expression in neuroblasts, imaginal disks and a subset of sensory neurons. Larvae homozygous for the insert arrest development as second instar larvae and die without pupating. The most obvious defect in these larvae is a significantly reduced CNS, hence the naming of the gene as smallminded. The deduced amino acid sequence of smid contains a tandem duplication of the AAA nucleotide binding domain characteristic of the cdc48p/VCP subfamily. Overall, smid shares 33% identical residues with its closest relative, yeast L0919-chrXII and 26-29% with other members of the cdc48p/VCP subfamily. The most highly conserved regions of the predicted protein structure are found in and around the nucleotide binding domains. The gene is expressed at all developmental stages.

Keywords

  • Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Base Sequence, Brain/anatomy & histology, Cell Cycle Proteins/biosynthesis, Cloning, Molecular, Drosophila/genetics, Drosophila Proteins, Genes, Insect, Genes, Reporter, Heterozygote, Homozygote, Larva, Molecular Sequence Data, Neurons, Afferent/metabolism, Recombinant Fusion Proteins/biosynthesis, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)191-9
Number of pages9
JournalGene
Volume208
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Feb 1998
Externally publishedYes
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